Social Psychology Paper

Stereotypes: Funny or not? The crowd was loud; it was hard to think. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard, “Ref! Check his Green Card! I bet he ran like that through the border!” This paper will address and explore the concept of prejudice from a personal incident that occurred during an important soccer game while attending high school. The above quote was made by a fan of the opposing team, Newark Academy, while playing at their home-field in Newark, New Jersey in late November of 2010. I attended The Dwight-Englewood School at the time, and it was our first time to the quarter-finals of the state-sectionals tournament two years in a row. This incident is a perfect example of how the phenomenon of social influence is represented in the real world, and how this term is used to define Social Psychology. Social Psychology refers to the study of how individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of people or the idea of external factors. Social Psychology is important because it helps us explore, predict, and reveal how a certain individual will behave in a given situation. Throughout this paper, I will develop my incident further and explore how the principles of social influence, prejudice, stereotypes, overconfidence barriers, and perceptual salience can be applied to my personal example in order to explain and represent a real-world example of Social Psychology. As stated above, the concept of social influence is one of the main ideas used to define Social Psychology. In Social Psychology by Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert, social influence is defined as, “the effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior” (Pg. 3 Aronson, Wilson, Akert). From my understanding, social influence is a term used to describe external factors produced by others that influence an individual’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior. I believe whenever the